A (mostly) humorous look at life. No, really. I'm serious.

Menu

Category Archives: Animals

Post navigation

To seamlessly segue from last week to this, Loretta and I ultimately accomplished our goal of giving cat beds to Slinky, who lives under a bridge at a local college and also to Bridget, who lives under another bridge on campus. Granted, that doesn’t sound exciting. But when you realize these two have spent 13 years living in dirt under their respective bridges, offering them their first beds was a big deal. (To us at least!)

The bridge

Now don’t get me wrong; even though college administrators wish the cats, and we who feed them, would disappear, what they fail to recognize is the gumption of our feral rescue volunteers. These are no wussies. We hold our own when faced with unreasonable requests, like allowing elderly ferals to starve.

When Loretta and I decided it was way overdue that we provide our two ferals a bed, did we fear arrest? Nah. Call us crazy…those cats were getting a bed come hell or high water. And let me tell you, the water was high. (The creek under the bridges was rushing like a river after a recent storm.) So anyway, we waited for the cloak of darkness before pulling off the cat bed caper. Continue reading →

I have many adventures in feral cat rescue and meeting interesting people is part of the adventure. Now don’t get me wrong; interesting isn’t always so great. Take, for instance, two bozos I’ve had the displeasure of dealing with who work at a local college.

Slinky, an elderly feral our nonprofit has been feeding for 10 years, lives under a bridge at the college. But the head honchos (the bozos) have always prohibited us from offering him shelter. Why, you ask? Because they have their heads up their butts. I’m talkin’ way, way up there.

Five years ago, under a rural grocery store, I trapped a kitten I named Tippi. That day, I helped her escape living a feral life. At midnight on New Year’s Day, I brought Tippi to pet emergency where I was with her when, 13 hours later, she left this life.

This outcome is hard for me to comprehend because Tippi didn’t appear to be ill and just weeks ago had her yearly well-check. She was prone to upper respiratory infections but that was nothing new, having come from a sickly colony. So her passing was unexpected.

Her favorite nappng place

Not even a week ago Tippi attempted, for the 100th time, to climb the tree in the family room. As usual, I yelled at her to get down and as usual, she obliged. That same day, she sunned herself on the bench in my backyard. A couple days later she was a different cat; not eating, throwing up, barely able to walk, hiding…

Wishing she had something to knock off the counter

Our trip to the vet revealed Tippi in kidney failure. They ran every test imaginable but were dumbfounded as to the cause. The ultra sound was fine but her creatinine levels were off the charts. You might be asking yourself how Tippi’s death fits into a humor blog. You’re right, it doesn’t. So to remedy that, let me tell you how Tippi lived. Continue reading →

So what does that say about me? After all, I’m the common denominator. Now don’t get me wrong; that doesn’t mean I think Nellie, Callie, Skip, Wally, Oliver, Savannah, Tippi and Jack are flawed. Quite the contrary. They may be odd but they provide endless entertainment through their weirdness. And anyway, aren’t we all a little odd? Therefore, I’ll gladly take credit for their, shall we say, “unique qualities.”

As you all know, Nellie eats poop so I’m used to that weird trait of hers. But another thing she does (when she thinks I’m not looking) is to leap onto the bed immediately after I’m done making it. She gathers the sheets and comforter into a tiny mountain in the middle of the bed, then plops herself on it and promptly takes a nap. A particularly annoying weirdness…

I have two words for you: LAKE TAHOE. That means I didn’t get any writing done this week. But here’s a post from 2012 that you won’t remember because, well, it was 6 years ago! Happy reading…

There are few things of which I’ve been certain. I’m the queen of indecisiveness. Mexican or Italian for dinner? Hmm…maybe Italian? Wear the beige or blue skirt? I guess the beige? What color should we paint the house? Don’t even go there.

In fact, one decision that actually came easy for me was to adopt our buff-colored Cocker Spaniel, Tequila. I suppose, to be truthful, it wasn’t actually my decision. Knowing my history and the fact that I would waver between dogs for days, my husband picked her and I nodded in agreement and relief. Good choice, Jim.

We had good intentions from the get-go and decided not to feed her fattening table scraps. We bought the best dog food we could find and congratulated ourselves on not giving in to those pleading brown eyes under the dinner table.